


Habitual Indifference

by DatPieTho



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: I'll add tags and such as they come, M/M, There will be porn but it won't be very explicit, and it will come later and I'll change the rating for that chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 12:58:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8014942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DatPieTho/pseuds/DatPieTho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A human and modern Daudsider AU in which Daud isn't entirely sure what's happening, and The Outsider does not care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Habitual Indifference

**Author's Note:**

> Considering their interactions in-game have a lot to do with things that won't replicate well in this AU, their interactions will be a bit different. 
> 
> There's no rating on this just yet, but I'll tweak that, and the tags, as I go along in writing this.

All his life, Daud has had a handful of his characteristics stay the same. He has always been angry at someone or something (as of late, that had been the government), and he has always been a good leader. Even if he had achieved the status in less-than-admirable ways, he was good at it. Better, even, than the one he may have stolen the position from. It was a reputation that followed him, and had Daud not been such a commanding figure it might have even preceded him.

    For the past several years, Daud's life has been relatively uneventful. He was the man in charge of his office, and he easily formed deals with results only he could bring. Daud was somewhat unusual for the men of his age in that he did not look to starting a family, nor did he want one. Living near his office, on the third floor of a three-floor apartment building whose brick was slowly crumbling away, he'd once witnessed a falling brick hit an annoying marketer in the head. That was the day he'd resolved to never move.

    Even physically, Daud had not changed much these past several years. New wrinkles and gray hairs had begun to call him their home, asides from that, however, Daud looked the same as he always had: Dark hair, a stern face, and a fit build. He exercised everyday after work, and generally walked to and from where he needed to go, considering most things were a few blocks away.

    When Daud wakes that morning in his cramped, messy apartment, he does not expect the days events to be any different than normal: Daud will go to work as he always does, briefly stopping at the small coffee shop on the way there before walking the three blocks to his office, yet another cramped and messy space. The only step in his morning ritual he managed to complete that day was to visit the coffee shop, two blocks from his apartment building and halfway down the right side of the street. The space here is also small, the outside a faded brick and the inside the same. The floors, a creaking dark wood, are stained in spots from well over twenty years of fallen coffees.

    Inside the coffee shop was the glass cases of pastries and cakes, the rows of coffee and espresso machines behind the counter holding the cash register. Sets of metal tables and metal chairs crammed together, butts of "to-go" orders bumping against the heads of "for here" orders. The smell of coffee grinds and fresh pastries filled Daud's nose, inviting and normal but also time-consuming.

    Standing at the door, Daud peers at the handful of patrons who type at laptops and cell phones, mugs of coffee on the cold tops of their respective tables. A majority of the faces are the usual, tired and dull but still the same people Daud is used to seeing here. However, there is one new face, a man whose pale skin contrasts completely with his dark hair and dark eyes above dark rings, brows bowed down to give him an intense look. There's one person between he and Daud when the latter finally reaches the counter, the woman behind it tired and indifferent to the man ordering black coffee with too much sugar for it to taste good for anyone.

    When the strange man steps from the line, new mug in hand, Daud has only realized he had been watching him when their eyes meet. Daud feels like he is being judged for things the man could not possibly know, and he steps from the counter to sit across from him, and the stare Daud receives makes him feel decades older than he is.

"Have we met before?" He sounds bored yet fully awake, a brow lifting just slightly; The mock curiousity did not betray his disinterest.

"I don't believe we have." Daud speaks with venom he cannot find a basis for, mouth set into a scowl.

"I believe we have met now." The final word has emotion to it, emphasis that annoys Daud as it makes him feel as if the other man thinks him an idiot.

    Daud has realized he missed work only when the man has gotten up for his ninth or tenth cup of coffee, and Daud looks to the clock with a jolt; It is nine-thirty in the morning, and he should have been settled in his second-floor office thirty minutes ago. Regardless, Daud does not get up, watching the other man as he orders and then as he sits again. He has told the man his name, but he has not been told the man's name. An outsider, Daud thinks, as he notices the difference between the man across from him and the others around them. Perhaps that is what Daud will call him.

    Two hours later, and he still does not know the other man's name, however he has noticed the ring on the man's finger and asked about it, only to be told that it meant nothing more than decoration. The lack of knowledge of the other man's name is not something Daud thinks about, nor is it something he finds unusual, too enamored with the man's speech: While inherently bored and dull, he speaks with awareness to his eyes and with the faintest glimmer of sarcasm tucked within his words. It's inviting to Daud, for him to continue to speak to the other man, to perhaps piece together the enigma before him using these subtleties. 

    They soon leave the coffee shop together, Outsider leading Daud down the street and into an eccentric store Daud would have scoffed at if he had been by himself and made note of it. Inside were what were introduced as charms, pieces of what Daud thought was bone with black markings carved into their scratched surfaces. He feels that, should he have picked one up, he may have cursed himself for all eternity.

    Outsider tells him of their various meanings, and Daud begins to feel the phenomenally odd man spends most of his time in this phenomenally odd store; It's an entirely fitting relationship, to Daud.

    Asides from the strange charms, there's plenty more oddities in the store Daud feels vaguely worried might spring to life and fly around the room. There are stacks of cards, art on both the backs and fronts of them strange and featuring many nude figures. There are dead and dried flowers, strung together and hanging upside-down over an old, wooden counter where the cash register and its tired worker sat. Odd foods rested on large shelves on the wall near Daud: Small packages of "Devil's Heat!" chips and sour candies, chocolates enclosing hot peppers and glass jars of oddly-colored jelly beans. There were candles, large and small and some colored. They boasted strong and long-lasting scents, and Daud felt like he was going to sneeze by merely looking at them.

"How often do you come here?" Daud asked with a raised brow, looking to Outsider.

"I help design many of the items here."

    Daud nods slightly, peering around the room in attempt to make sense of it all, a feat he seems incapable of doing. Abruptly, train of thought unceremoniously broken, Daud feels a cold weight in his left hand which was held up by a skinny, pale hand with eerily long fingers, soft with chilling fingertips. The cold weight is one of the charms, and, closer now, Daud can see the symbol is carefully carved and equally carefully painted. 

"Keep this one." Outsider spoke with a finality that told Daud he could not refuse. So he didn't, pocketing the strange trinket.

    Daud has spent the whole day with the man he's taken to habitually calling Outsider, who speaks of whales with a certain reverence and whose shrine to them is his phone's background and lock screen; He is tired to his very bones, the amount of mental effort involved in trying to determine what Outsider is really saying a tiring feat even for Daud himself, who does the same everyday when he works, however at a lower caliber. When Daud leaves, to return alone to his cramped, messy apartment after twelve hours of strangeness, he has a torn slip of paper with Outsider's address, (the apartment above the strange store, no less), but no name and no phone number. Daud smells of coffee and has the faint remnants of pastry on the collar of his shirt, and his hair is coming undone from the morning's gel.

    Hours later, half-asleep on his couch and a heinous mess, Daud gets up to answer the knock at his door, unsteady and indescribably annoyed. It's the man from earlier, Outsider, who seems wary of Daud's presence, and it's a reciprocated feeling; While he gave Daud his address, Daud had given him his phone number. Thus, it is both eerie and bizarre that Outsider had found his home, but Daud merely raises a brow as he fits himself in the space of the open door to prevent the uninvited guest from forcing his way inside, despite the fact Outsider seemed to hold no urge to do so.

"I followed you earlier, and now I've come to visit. Let me in, if you will." The man speaks plainly, almost bored. Daud feels his jaw begin to work, a scowl on his face as he lets Outsider in and past him, shutting the door with the slightest hints of a slam.

    Outsider makes a space on Daud's couch before he sits, folding the tired blanket that had lain haphazardly there and setting it to the side, fixing the nearly-flat pillows Daud kept forgetting to replace. Daud slowly comes to realize the odd man is looking at him expectantly, arms crossed over his chest. 

"What do you want?"

"You're not a good host. I'd like some water, please."

    Daud fills a glass, handing it to him and watching as he sipped. It takes Daud a moment before he speaks, a brow slightly raised, "I did not invite you here. I don't have to be a good host." He paused briefly, eyeing the man who'd made his temporary home on Daud's couch, "What's your name?"

"I liked what you called me earlier. Outsider, wasn't it? It's fitting." He spoke calmly, 

    Daud didn't remember calling him that aloud. His eye twitched, and Daud's mouth formed a stern frown, "That doesn't answer my question."

    Outsider says nothing, finishing the glass of water and setting it on Daud's rapidly aging wooden coffee table, strewn with paperwork and old newspapers. The charm from earlier that day sits nearby, and Outsider spares it no more than a glance. Daud sits next to him, and turns on the small television across from them, feet firmly planted on his fraying rug. 

    The two sat side-by-side on Daud's couch in silence for a several minutes, the oddness of the situation threatening to swallow Daud whole. Daud peers at Outsider from the corner of his eye, his already weak trust of the man fading rapidly with every passing moment. He noticed that Outsider's clothes, dark and somewhat formal were rapidly aging, buttons scuffed and collar frayed. His dark boots were caked in dried mud, providing Daud with the urge to throw them off his rug.

    At a commercial for a tattoo competition show, Outsider spoke again, the suddenness of it noticeably startling Daud, "Have you ever debated getting a tattoo?" Outsider peers at him as he asks, tired eyes twinkling with the faintest glimmer of knowledge. To Daud, it's unnerving.

"Once or twice, when I was younger."

    Daud swears the man grinned, even just briefly before he'd responded, "I think you'd look good with one." Daud cannot tell if Outsider is sarcastic or not.

    They speak about this for awhile, Outsider speaking of designs he felt would look nice on Daud. However, Outsider often returned to a specific tattoo he'd hastily drawn on a week-old article about cosmetics testing on rats, "I've always liked this. I think you should get it."  

    Daud couldn't help but utter a snort, "Then why would I get it? Why not you?" 

    Outsider and Daud argue on this for awhile, Outsider stating he didn't want the tattoo himself, and Daud expressing his mildly annoyed confusion. When he looks at the clock above his television, dimly lit with a blue glow from the electronic below it, Daud squints; Outsider has been in his apartment for an hour now, and Daud is, at this point, extraordinarily tired of his forced host position.

    And that is how, ten minutes later, Daud is saying good-bye to Outsider, a date of sorts scheduled for two days from now at the same coffee shop where the two had met. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The next chapter is probably going to be posted next weekend or so, depends on how I am with my other writing and similar things.
> 
> This is a little shorter than I liked but! I will make it up to you all I promise.


End file.
